Among the many figures reflected by the chaotic eye of the Pale Giant King, there was a vacancy - was it a coincidence, or was it intentional by the ancient kings?
Duncan only knew that when he came to the side of the ship and carefully observed the huge single eye, he happened to stand in front of the empty seat - his figure was reflected there, and he did not realize this until he identified other indescribable figures from the turbid sediment mist on the surface of the giant eye.
Perhaps this really was just a coincidence - he wanted to tell himself so, but in the warp, in front of the corpse of an ancient god, he did not believe in such coincidences.
Duncan frowned, then cautiously and slowly backed away, as if he was afraid of waking up something here.
The dead king of the pale giants, and the figures of the kings reflected in the one eye - Duncan always felt that these beings seemed to be watching him silently, watching his every move, as if they were casting a distant gaze from the long river of time.
With cautious and slow movements, he moved away from in front of the One Eye.
However, the next second, he saw his own figure emerge again, once again quietly reflected in that eye, reflected among the kings.
Duncan's eyes widened slightly in an instant. He felt as if his heart had suddenly stopped for half a beat. Then, a scene that caught him off guard appeared:
The image of myself left in the giant's one eye is gradually changing.
The tall and majestic blurry figure in the captain's uniform and the gloomy tricorn hat was shaking and changing, as if some illusion was fading away. The figure quickly turned into another appearance - a "human" wearing a white shirt and black trousers, who did not look very strong, and whose face was so blurry that it was unrecognizable.
That is "Zhou Ming".
Zhou Ming stood motionless on the deck, staring at the huge cloudy eye just inches away from the side of the ship like a sculpture, staring at "himself" reflected in the giant eye.
After an unknown amount of time, he finally took a step forward and stood in front of the giant eye again. Through a layer of turbid mist condensed on the surface of the eyeball, he stared at his blurry reflection and slowly reached out his hand.
He knew he was taking a risk, that he was making horrific attempts in this strange and dangerous warp - but in the end, his fingers still touched the surface of the eyeball.
A feeling of "nothingness" came from his fingertips. In just a moment, Zhou Ming understood what Lucrecia had told him about the "nothingness" she felt when she touched the cylindrical black shadow at the border.
He was sure that he touched something, but he didn't feel any temperature or hardness. The incomplete and strange "perception" coming from his fingertips stunned him for a moment.
In the next moment, Zhou Ming saw that his reflection in his eyes suddenly changed - the "human" in the white shirt collapsed quickly like an unstable illusion, and every part of the color that made up the image faded and dissipated in the blink of an eye. As the colors faded, countless specks of light poured out from them!
A brilliant starlight replaced the quickly disappearing figure and spread around along the darkness. In the first second, they maintained a blurred and distorted human outline, but countless starlight seemed to overflow from all around the human-shaped outline. The galaxy-like light covered the entire eyeball almost in the blink of an eye, and then continued to overflow and surge - the starlight finally overflowed from the eyeball and spread from the surface of the eyeball!
The light streamed and touched Zhou Ming's fingers. At the moment of "contact", Zhou Ming heard a roar in his head!
It was a combination of countless loud noises, the "tremor" produced when a huge amount of information was compressed into a moment. It was a vast amount of data that was enough to explain the laws governing the operation of the entire world, an entrance, a door, and the instructions and thoughts of hundreds of millions of people. In this eternal moment that was so short that it might only last for a Planck time, Zhou Ming felt as if he was torn apart. His consciousness rose and fell in the roar, and he struggled to find the sounds superimposed on the roar. He felt as if he was about to understand the meaning of those sounds, and many broken fragments swarmed into his mind, roaring in his reason -
"…We are human beings…We stand at the end of everything."
Amidst the roar, among the countless fragments, a voice said this.
Zhou Ming’s eyes widened instantly.
"...we have understood almost all the mysteries...
"... the laws of the movement of stars... time and space, the fluctuation of information...
"Until we discover that the end of time is destruction... an event beyond our cognitive models... occurring outside our universe...
"Moving forward in time is meaningless... In the finite model... the probability of undoing this event is zero... We decided to send #＊#%￥@ backwards to...
"We...named it...'Anti-Singularity'...In our calculations...after this event, the only fragment that can be completely preserved in all timelines is 0.002 seconds long...
"You are Zhou Ming, you... The old calendar timestamp is 2022-07-10-07-10-00-000... and ends at 2022-07-10-07-10-00-002...
"It is now 41765-12c-32-15b, and everything ends before our eyes.
"Good luck.
“Good luck to them.
"May we..."
"boom--"
Zhou Ming felt as if he had suddenly stopped from an eternal fall, and suddenly broke free from a frozen moment. Countless superimposed roars turned into a distant, vague impression in his mind. The rational part of him that belonged to the "human" returned in an instant, and in this brief and fragile rationality, he suddenly retreated.
But those bright stars have disappeared at some point.
The starlight overflowing from the giant's single eye disappeared, and the reflection on the surface of the eyeball also disappeared - not only the reflections of "Duncan", "Zhou Ming" and "Starlight Giant" disappeared, but also the figures that once stood in the darkness, symbolizing the ancient kings.
The "shadows" that had been condensed in this eye for a hundred centuries seemed to have been "washed" away by something in the roar just now, leaving only a hazy turbidity representing death covering the eyeball, with no more discernible information in it.
Obviously, this eyeball is just some kind of "information carrier", and now with a strong release and flushing of information, everything condensed on its surface has been cleared away.
The surroundings became quiet, with no more noise or roar. The warp seemed to have returned to eternal stagnation, and the broken deck of the Lost Homeland was completely silent.
However, the broken "fragments" that swarmed out in the roar just now were still circling in Zhou Ming's consciousness, like a continuous hurricane, whistling through his reason and thinking again and again - this "hurricane" took a long time to gradually subside, turning into a deep impression and memory, forever remaining in his mind.
Zhou Ming took a few steps back and raised his hand to press on his forehead. He gasped for breath, and his violently beating heart gradually calmed down.
The ability to think returned to him.
Zhou Ming stood for a long time in the chaos and darkness of the subspace, letting the meaningless time pass slowly. He thought in this eternal silence, and continued to think until an unknown amount of time had passed before his figure moved again.
He raised his head and looked into the darkness in the distance.
The boundless warp swallowed his sight.
There must be countless secrets hidden in that endless darkness - but he is tired.
The "roar" almost exhausted his energy, and he no longer had the strength to steer the ghost ship to challenge the endless darkness.
“…It’s time to go back.”
Zhou Ming muttered softly, and at the same time took a step and slowly came to the door of the captain's room - he still remembered the method of returning to the real world from the subspace. As long as he pushed open the "Door of the Lost Homelander" from here, entered another dark space, and then opened the door again from the dark space, he could return to the real dimension.
When he placed his hand on the handle of the "Gate of the Lost Homelanders", he stopped and then looked back at the boundless chaos behind him.
He knew that he would come back sooner or later.
Without further hesitation, he quickly and smoothly completed the "double door opening" return operation.
When the familiar sound of waves reached his ears again and the salty and cool night breeze blew across his cheeks, Duncan felt his heart finally settle down again - he returned to the familiar real world.
Looking up, the cool light of the Creation of the World is pouring down to the sea from the sky. The faint golden sunlight spreading from the distant sea is intertwined with the cool light in the sky, outlining the unique, strange yet charming night scene near Breeze Harbor.
A slight creaking sound mixed with the sound of the nearby waves, and in between was the friction sound made by the mast's cables as they automatically adjusted themselves.
Everything experienced in the subspace was like a bizarre dream.
Duncan shook his head. He knew that it was certainly not a dream—it was crucial information, even the "truth" pointing to his own nature.
But he could only put these disturbing thoughts behind him for the time being - because there was too much key information missing, and his current random thoughts would not lead to any conclusions.
A voice from the captain's room came from the other side of the door. It was the familiar "first mate".
"... I have finished talking about the customs and people of the northern seas. I will tell you about the central seas. I am an experienced sailor. The city-states in the central seas..."
A smile appeared on his face involuntarily, and Duncan felt himself relax a little again. Then he took a deep breath and opened the door of the captain's room.
At the edge of the navigation table, the goat head that was chattering with another head immediately stopped and turned to look at the captain standing at the door.
"Duncan Abnomer." Duncan said casually before this guy asked the question.
The goat-head was startled for a moment, then his tone became cheerful: "Ah! The captain is back!"